


9 November, 1966

by Morgan Steelgrave (m_steelgrave)



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-15
Updated: 2010-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-12 17:06:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_steelgrave/pseuds/Morgan%20Steelgrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paul was dead. At least, scores of idiotic fans with a love of conspiracy theories seemed to think so. And they were right, for about ninety minutes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	9 November, 1966

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thorne_scratch](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=thorne_scratch).



Paul was dead. At least, scores of idiotic fans with a love of conspiracy theories seemed to think so. And they were right, for about ninety minutes.

It began as they were lounging about Paul's place on Cavendish. Ringo was on vacation with Maureen, so that left the three of them sitting 'round Paul's living room, getting progressively more stoned as the afternoon wore on. John had gone to an art gallery earlier in the day and the strange bird whose exhibition it was gave him a copy of her book, _Grapefruit_.

"Listen! Listen to this," said John, reading from the book as Paul poured them another drink. "'Hide until everybody goes home. Hide until everybody forgets about you. Hide until everybody dies.'"

"Cheerful," said George.

"Rubbish," John said. "Her art's not bad, though."

"What do you know about art?" Paul asked as he returned with yet another bottle of gin.

"I know what I like," said John. He sounded huffy, so to avoid the inevitable John-spat, George reached over and took the book from him.

"Then the book must be good for something, then," he said, flipping through it absently. Paul sat down next to him on the settee and grabbed the book out of his hands.

"I'll tell you what it's good for," he said, and it wasn't long before he was rolling up a pound note and arranging neat lines of cocaine on the book's glossy cover.

"I can't believe you like that stuff," George said. Paul smiled and took the joint from between George's fingers.

"It's all about balance, Geo," he said. He took a long drag and passed it to John, who was sprawled on the floor, holding a conversation with himself about the Japanese bird's art. He paused in his tirade to take a puff on the joint, then said, "Should we head over to Mick's, then?"

The consensus was that they were sufficiently prepared (read, pissed) for one of Mick Jagger's parties. Paul was on his motorbike, followed by John and George in John's psychedelic Rolls. Paul was known for his lead foot, and John was having a bit of trouble keeping up with him as they neared Mick's place.

"I can't even see him anymore, the bastard," he grumbled. It was true; George could no longer make out the tail lights of the motorbike in the late autumn dark.

"Just keep on," said George. "We'll catch up to him."

It was then that George saw the black marks of the tires on the road. "John, slow down."

"Don't tell me you're scared, Hari," John said with a wicked grin.

"No, look!" George pointed to a plume of smoke coming from the ditch. George threw open the door before the Rolls had even come to a full stop.

"What is it?" John called from the car. George followed the trail of crushed brown grass until he came to the smoking motorbike. The tires were still spinning.

"It's Paul's motorbike," he called up to John. "I can't see Paul, though."

"Where the bloody hell could he be?"

"I don't know, it looks like he lost it on the curve. Maybe he jumped clear." George rooted around in the grass for a moment, squinting in the dark. On the road above, another car rounded the curve and its headlamps cast a lumpy shadow at the base of a nearby tree.

"Oh, no."

"What?"

"I found him!" George reached the shadow and turned it over. It was Paul, alright, but he could only tell from the stupid paisley shirt he'd been wearing earlier. Not much else was recognizable. "His face is all bloodied," George called from the ditch. "Maybe he's just broken his nose."

Even as he said it, though, George knew better. He knew from the brawls in Hamburg how much a nose could bleed (enough to send you into a real panic when you're on uppers) and this...this was much more than that. This was enough blood to send him into full-blown terror, is what it fucking well was.

"Shouldn't we call the medics?" he asked, not wanting to hurt Paul any further.

John slid sideways down the side of the ditch, catching onto George's arm to stop his descent.

"Oh, God," he said when he finally saw Paul. "Oh, fuck."

"Yeah," said George, because there wasn't much else to say.

"We've got to get him in the car," said John at last.

"But—"

"Help me get him in the fucking car!"

John grabbed Paul under his armpits and George got his feet. One of his shoes was missing, George noted, but they weren't about to take the time to search for it in the grass in the dark. John climbed into the back seat of the Rolls to cradle Paul's head in his lap. "You drive," he said.

John didn't let anyone drive the Rolls. George tried not to think about that, because that would mean acknowledging just how serious things were. "Hospital?" he asked, turning the key in the ignition.

"No," said John.

"What? John, he's hurt bad, we've got to get him to a doctor!"

"There's not much they can do for him at this point, is there?"

"Don't say that, John, he's not—he can't be—"

George swallowed and squeezed his fingers even tighter around the steering wheel. This wasn't happening. This was too surreal. It had to be the drugs, they'd gotten hold of something bad and this was all one horrible hallucination. They were still sitting in Paul's living room on Cavendish, talking about that crazy Japanese bird's art. Paul wasn't hurt— _dead, he's dead_ , George's brain supplied—and John didn't sound like he was close to tears, and George wasn't sitting in the driver's seat of John's stupid Rolls.

"He's dead, Hari," John said quietly, "and if we take him to hospital the fucking nurses will want to wipe their hankies in his guts."

John was right. The scruffs would probably steal Paul's body if they could, and that was an indignity he wasn't prepared to let Paul face, dead or alive.

"Where then?"

"Mick's. If anyone knows a doctor we can trust not to call the goddamned _Mirror_ , it's Mick and Keith."

"Right then," said George, and he pulled out into traffic.

When they arrived at Mick's house, Keith happened to be standing out front talking up a crowd of girls. George pulled the car 'round back, and Keith sauntered over. "Evening, gents," he said with a grin that faded as soon as he saw the bloody mess in the back seat. "Fuck. What the hell happened?"

"He hit a tree on his motorbike," George ground out. "We've got to get him inside."

"Is he all right?"

"Does he bloody well look all right, you tit?" John snapped. Keith said no more and opened the back door to help unload their battered cargo. Mick opened the kitchen door in time to see what was happening, and he ushered the guests in the kitchen through the swinging door and into the parlor. They helped George and John get Paul upstairs unseen, pointing them to a spare bedroom.

"We'll fetch Gwen," said Mick. "We took Keith to her one time when he'd had enough smack to kill a pony, and she fixed him right up."

George was appalled. "This isn't an overdose, Mick! It's not like you can just give him two aspirin and he'll be right as rain!"

"You don't know Gwen," said Keith, and he and Mick were out the door, moving faster than John or George had ever seen them move.

The party was still in full swing downstairs. Laughter and a few notes from the stereo— _Pet Sounds_ again, it sounded like—drifted up the narrow stairwell and down the hall. George felt vaguely ill, and though his hands and feet were tingly as if they'd fallen asleep, he couldn't sit still. He paced instead and chewed viciously at a hangnail on his right thumb. John refused to let go of the bloody mess that was Paul's body, still cradling him on the Turkish rug. Neither of them said a word.

It seemed hours before Mick and Keith returned with a young woman in tow. At least George thought she was young, but there were fine lines etched around her mouth and between her brows, so she could have been older than she first appeared. She took one look at Paul and said in an accent he could only identify as Caribbean, "How long him been gone?"

George swallowed thickly. "Forty-five minutes, maybe." Gwen nodded once and knelt beside John, digging through the large bag she'd brought with her.

"You let him go now, yeah? I give him back soon," she said, giving John's arm a friendly but urgent pat. John looked at her for a moment, his eyes glassy behind the spectacles, but he nodded after a moment and laid Paul carefully on the rug before standing up beside George.

Gwen started taking things out of her bag and said without looking up, "Leave us be. This you don't need to see." And then Mick and Keith were taking them by the arms, closing the door behind them.

* * *

John and George sat in the hall outside the bedroom door, passing a bottle of gin between them. Mick and Keith had returned to the party a while ago, but every now and then one of them would climb the stairs to check on Gwen's progress. It was difficult to hear much of anything through the heavy wooden door, especially with the party in full swing downstairs, but every now and then George caught a strain of chanting or a whiff of sweet smoke.

John still had not said a word since they arrived. George tried once to draw him out, but failed miserably.

It seemed like days had passed since they'd been fucking around over at Paul's place. It occurred to George that Martha might be hungry, but Paul had left the dog alone for at least this long before. What would happen to Martha if this—whatever it was—didn't work? Paul's brother Mike would probably take her. The thought made George feel even worse, and he gestured to John to pass the bottle.

John either didn't see, or chose to ignore him. He was staring off into the middle distance, his hands limp around the bottle's neck. There was a smudge of what must have been Paul's blood on his neck and his shirt and trousers were ruined with it. George knew he mustn't look much better, and whatever the outcome of the evening, they couldn't very well go out in public looking like they'd just finished shooting Bob Whitiker's butcher cover. A giggle escaped him, and George quickly covered his mouth with his fist.

John finally glanced at him. "What?"

"I'm sorry," said George, fighting not to laugh again. "It's nothing."

"What?" John prompted again.

"Do you remember when the shit hit the fan over those photos Bob Whitiker took?"

John's brow furrowed. "With the sausages and the dolls?"

"Yeah, that's the one," said George. "I was just thinking if everyone got their knickers in a twist over us holding a couple of steaks in a photo shoot, what they'd say if they could see us now." He starting laughing in earnest then, and he couldn't stop. "I'm sorry, it isn't funny," he managed between gasps.

John handed him the bottle of gin. "You've lost it, mate," he said, though he was smiling.

"I know, I know," said George. He turned the bottle up and finished it off, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "God, what if someone finds out?"

"Well, someone's going to figure something happened. We left the motorbike in the ditch."

"D'you think they'll be more upset that Paul's..." George trailed off, trying not to think about what really happened, "that he wrecked, or that we let Mick and Keith turn a witch doctor loose on him?"

"Christ, Eppy will have a stroke," John said, and then he was laughing, too.

They were leaning on each other, still laughing and trying desperately to catch their breath when the bedroom door finally opened. George fell over backwards into the room, which made John laugh even harder.

Gwen cleared her throat. George simply lay there, looking up at her. It was even harder to judge her age when she was upside-down. "You can see him now," she said, and went back into the bedroom.

George and John both scrambled to their feet. Inside the room was dark, lit by squat candles. There were strange shadowed shapes that might have been animal bones spread out on the floor. It smelled of blood and incense. Gwen had moved Paul to the bed and cleaned him up. The cuts and scrapes on his face had been cleaned and dressed, and George could just make out the shallow rise and fall of his chest beneath the coverlet.

Beside him John made a strangled noise, and George knew he must have seen it, too.

"He hit him head pretty good," said Gwen as she packed away her things. "Take me a while to bring him back. Swelling still bad, be a week before him have all his wits." She snapped her bag shut and crossed to stand right in front of them. "Now you listen good," she said, pointing one long finger at them. "Both of you too drunk to know what happened here. But it cannot happen again. This dangerous stuff, you hear? You lucky he wasn't hurt no worse and that I feel generous today."

George had a feeling she wasn't just talking about the motorbike accident. "What do we owe you?"

Gwen snorted. "More than you can pay," she said. "But I settle for seventy thousand. This neighborhood getting too crazy. I want a house on a nice, quiet street where drunken boys don't bring me dead men to bring back."

"But—"

"Excuse me," said a voice from the doorway. A skinny man was peering into the room with obvious trepidation, most likely due to the punch being offered downstairs. "Is this the toilet?"

"No, it bloody well isn't," John growled. He crossed over to the door to push the man out, but the guy refused to budge.

"Are you—is that—?" he asked, pointing at the bed.

John looked murderous, but before he could inflict any damage on the poor drunk, Mick appeared and ushered him down the hall. "No, Tommy, the toilet's down that way. This lad's just had a bit too much, is all. Move along, now." Turning to peer inside the bedroom, he nodded to the sleeping Paul on the bed. "Get Humpty Dumpty put back together again, Gwennie?"

Gwen glared at him, then turned to point her intimidating finger at George. "Cash. Mickey-boy know how to reach me." And with that, she was gone.

"Right," said Mick. "You three can stay here tonight. Just try not to trip on any of the bums on the stairs in the morning."

"Thanks, Mick," said George. He closed the door and locked it, leaning his forehead against the wood for a long moment. Everything from the last few hours—Christ, is that all it had been?—seemed to hit him at once, and he felt exhaustion settle in his bones.

They'd almost lost Paul. No, they _had_ lost him, but by some fluke they happened to be friends with some of the strangest people on earth, who happened to have even stranger contacts. And now Paul was back with them, and George didn't know whether he wanted to laugh some more or sit down on the bloodied rug and bawl his eyes out.

He decided on sleep, instead, and when he turned around John had already crawled fully-clothed into bed with Paul. He wrapped his arms around Paul and squeezed. Paul stirred and mumbled, "'Lo, Johnny," before burrowing further under the covers. George could see John's eyes crushed shut behind his spectacles and decided he'd find another spot to settle down. He grabbed the extra blanket folded across the foot of the bed and stretched out on the overstuffed chair and ottoman on the other side of the room and drifted off to the sounds of soft snores coming from across the room and the Who's latest cut drifting up from the party below.

* * *

George was awakened by Paul mumbling, "John, leggo. Wake up, John, I have to piss." He cracked one eye open and saw Paul trying to extricate himself from John's grip. He finally resorted to pinching, which made John loosen his grip long enough to take a swing at him. Paul ducked out of the bed before he could get a black eye and staggered in the direction of the loo.

"George," Paul acknowledged as he passed, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. George scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands and tried to stretch an impressive kink out of his back. John continued to snore.

The toilet flushed and Paul emerged, looking lost. "Are we at Mick's?" he asked. George nodded. Paul looked around and scratched his stomach above the waistband of his trousers. "Must have been some party. Did I get in a fight?"

"What?"

"The bandages. What's the other guy look like?" Paul grinned from somewhere behind the masses of gauze plastered to his face.

George thought of the tree by the side of the road and shuddered. "He won," he said.

"Huh. I don't even remember it."

"You don't remember anything?" George leaned his elbows on his knees and squinted up at Paul.

"No. Why?"

George considered him for a long moment, long enough to make Paul uncomfortable. When he realized what he was doing, he shook his head and stood. "Come on, let's have a fag. Sleeping beauty needs his rest." Paul pulled on a clean shirt Mick must have left for them and followed George downstairs and out onto the steps by the kitchen door. George took out two cigs and lit them, passing one to Paul.

Paul scrutinized him in the early morning sunlight. "You look like shit."

George glanced down at his bloodied clothing and shrugged. "Yeah."

"What happened, Geo?"

"You had an accident," George replied at length. Paul said nothing, so George continued, "You ran off the road."

"That's strange. I don't remember it at all," said Paul, rolling the cigarette thoughtfully between two fingers.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"John talking about that crazy woman's art show."

"Her art was good," John said from behind them, voice still rough from sleep.

"What do you know about art?" Paul asked with a small smile.

"I know what I like," John insisted, plucking the cigarette from Paul's fingers. He sat down on the other side of Paul and draped an arm across his shoulders as he exchanged a look with George. George smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> The Paul is Dead conspiracy didn't start until 1969, despite the fact that the "clues" date back to November 1966. It began when some guy named Tom called into a radio station claiming Paul was dead and that you could hear John say, "Turn me on, dead man," when you play "Revolution 9" backwards. It's crap, really, and so is my poor attempt at Gwen's dialect. Apologies for how much THAT sucks.
> 
> I've taken more liberties with Beatles canon than I usually do. This was the date John first met Yoko, and he did like her art, and Paul did have an accident on his motorbike. Whether it involved a tree or death, I don't know. I also don't know if Mick Jagger threw a party that night, but I figure the odds are that he threw a party most nights of the week. Also, the Bob Whitiker photo session mentioned refers to the album cover they'd originally planned for [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterday_and_Today) US album.


End file.
